James McAvoy was phenominal and the whole story was extremely moving.
-When she's finished chewing her cud remember to brush her teeth.
Yes, I felt moved by *Rory O'Shae Was Here* -- mostly because the film didn't condescend to its subject with blandly sympathetic characters and a queue of Hollywood moments. True, it was more sentimental than something by Mike Leigh, but I felt Leigh's commitment to closely observed characterization in the director and writers' approach.
When I first came to New York, one of my earliest paying jobs was entertaining a fellow with MS -- writing music and watching flicks with him, reading to him and writing down his stories. He knew I was a working musician and got to live out some of the perks through me, but I also lived through him. What he conveyed to me was an acute understanding of other people's emotions and preconceptions. He knew how to charm and reassure, and how to drive home the deep bitterness he felt having to orchestrate his every move through others. He wasn't soft; occasionally, he wasn't very kind. But I understood that frustration would make anyone act out as he sometimes did.
There was no doubt he loved being alive and present: observing, creating, and using sarcasm to express passionate ambivalence, esp. toward the circumstances and people around him.
Halfway through my time with him, I realized I had to refuse his money. He had to know that money bought him interest, like a personal ad, but that friends should be a given. I also wanted him to understand he couldn't be a brat simply because he assumed I was being paid to put up with it.
He was unique, of course, but I've no doubt there are many electrically mobile people as deep and ambivalent as he. Such a person lives and dies complexly, and is not reducible to a moment of pathos over light indie music.
Here's hoping we can have more movies with the integrity of *Rory O'Shae Was Here*. May the occasional catch in the throat occur when characters in wheelchairs become three-dimensional and closely drawn, not Oscar-ready symbols of martyred goodness.
And if someone wanted to make a horror film about a fellow with MS who picks off everyone around him -- one by one -- out of annoyance, I can think of at least one old friend who'd have snickered like Rory's character at the idea.